Affiliate Marketing Terms – Part II

Affiliate marketing terms is just like any other industry lingo. Understanding these terms is important… prior to starting out on an affiliate marketing career. You feel that there is a completely new world out there. Don’t let that worry you… we will guide you through it.

Our THREE-PART affiliate marketing terms guide…helps you easily wade through the affiliate industry. Although there is much to learn… this three-part guide would be more than sufficient for any affiliate newbie.

Affiliate marketing is a continuous learning curve… you always learn something new each day. Mentioned below are a few definitions that make it easier for new affiliates

In this post… we have outlined the different aspects of click-based affiliate marketing.

Learning The Affiliate Marketing Terms… Part II⁯.

Learning The Affiliate Marketing terms.

Conversion.

When an affiliate refers a potential user to a merchant website and they either sign up for the merchant’s program or successfully make a purchase, is known as a conversion. Conversions usually differ and depend on the desired outcome for each merchant.

Conversion Rate (CR).

The number of orders divided by the number of clicks. In other words, if your links generated 200 clicks and those referrals generated 20 orders, your conversion rate would be 20/200, or 0.1 or 10%.

Click-through.

This happens when a visitor clicks on a banner or a link on the affiliates page or website, which will then re-direct the visitor to the merchant's website.

Unique Visitors.

The number of visitors clicking into your website for the first time. Typically, repeat clickthroughs on the same day from the same visitor are not counted as unique visits.

Unlimited Referrals.

A program may continue to pay commissions to the same affiliate if a customer returns within the referral period.

Pay Per Click (PPC).

A payment model where the merchant pays for each click on an affiliate advert.

Cost Per Lead (CPL).

A click based affiliate payment model, where the affiliate vendor/ merchant pays for every single qualified lead that an affiliate directs to their website. Leads can be completed registrations, email addresses, or even a completed online survey.

Cost Per Click (CPC).

It is the cost of each individual click on an online ad.

Click-through Rate (CTR).

A metric usually that generally indicates the percentage of visitors who have clicked on a particular link on a specific website. Assuming that your link got 100 clicks for about 1000 impressions, then the CTR would be 100/1000, which would be 0.1 or 10%. It signifies the effectiveness of a link to generate traffic.

Cost per One Thousand (CPM).

It is a term used by merchants to gauge what it costs them for every 1,000 impressions they receive from an affiliate.

Effective Cost per One Thousand (ECPM or eCPM).

Affiliates can calculate eCPM by taking their earned Commissions and dividing them by impressions in units of 1,000. In other words, if you make $2,000 in a month in commissions and you know you have 500,000 impressions, you divide $2,000 by 500 and get an effective CPM of $4.00. That is how much your merchants are paying you for each 1,000 impressions on your site. eCPM helps you measure how well your ads are performing

Impression.

An impression or page view, takes place when a page containing the affiliate code is loaded on to your site or in an HTML email message.

Charge Back.

Commission deduction when a sale results in fraud, mistake, or product is returned.